the balance between
witnessing
and
desensitizing
is a much harder one
than i originally
expected
genocide
December 8, 2024
i think
my “problem”
is that i have big picture
thinking
with tiny detail
brain
and that just makes everything
overwhelming
all the time
~~~
like
i can see the whole planet
and each conflict
and how the systems lead to suffering
and how it
literally
doesn’t
need
to be
this way
but instead of just thinking about the systems
i then ‘zoom in’ and see
each country
each family
each child
each breath of the earth
suffering
suffering
suffering
and i am stuck
because i don’t want to look away
for fear i’ve cheapened
their individual
suffering
and story
but it’s hard to hold
hundreds
thousands
millions
billions
of people’s individual narratives
in a brain trained to only concentrate on one’s own
so i panic
and breathe hard
and fast
and when the feeling has finally passed
there’s the guilt
there’s the guilt
and i know it’s all going to happen
again and again and again
~~~
so how in this world do i utilize
my big picture imagination and individual compassion
without falling into
obsession?
without falling into the chain reaction of
‘i’ve decided to help one thing/cause/person —
‘but wait, this other person has it worse/’
‘but wait, this other cause is more just/’
‘but wait, this other thing runs so much deeper
and has its tendrils in so many of the other
horrors of this world…’
how do i stop my decision paralysis
when it comes to helping
human decency?
[i honestly don’t know
do you?]
December 1, 2024
hungry for something
something that aches me
something that can’t feed me
but can barely
sustain me
hungry for the feeling
of feeling
sans hunger
sans want
sans desire
sans anything that could be conflated
as relient
on anything
or anyone
but
i can’t help but feel
a Palestinian child
with me
in my own hunger
and when i’m sated
at least physically
if not philosophically
how
is that baby
halfway around the world
doing
in a manufactured famine
in a dictionary-definition genocide
[are they still alive?]
October 31, 2024
i want to write about halloween
and spooky times
and how much i love
this time of year
but i’ve been dealing with deep dark fears
of genocide
and our complicity in it
and how that makes political fallout
even more extreme
and i just want a candidate i can believe in
or a system i truly think is working
but instead we’ve got
this
[whatever this is
in terms of an american experiment
that probably shouldn’t have been tried
and we should have just left this land
and its people
alone…]
but i’m here
this is a fact
and there’s an ethnic cleansing happening half a world away
that i can see as i scroll in my own warm bed
another fact
and the choice between two candidates
two sides
of the same coin
still factual
and yet
one would bring about fascism
much
much
much
faster
[he has stated this in his plans all along — facts]
so i’m actually
for real
scared
afraid
for my life and liberty
and no, i’m not overreacting
[my favorite time of year
has been ruined by election anxiety
and i can’t even feel that affronted
because so much worse things are happening
all over
everywhere]
so please
vote
October 29, 2024
i feel bad
for the super creepy spiders
who show up in our house
because i’m so terrified
i just can’t abide
merely having them around
but they didn’t do anything
other than exist in the space i decided
to call my home
it becomes the question of
whether my comfort indicates
another creature’s right to exist
is null and void…
how did we get to a place
that this is happening
all over the planet
with people against people
[and how much of that phobia
is simply manufactured
through hate]
October 14, 2024
i keep having ideas for poems
and then leaning away from them
i think i’d like to hibernate
until spring comes
but what if spring
and summer
and early fall
all continue like this—
terrible news
no end to covid in sight
[though people try as they might
to ignore all the facts and findings]
death
and destruction
and feeling hopeless and helpless to stop it
unrelenting
unrelenting
i feel like i need a hibernation
until my next
life
October 1, 2024
it’s the helplessness that gets to me
not that i feel
un-helped
but how unhelpful i feel to those
i know
are suffering.
September 20, 2024
‘you’ve already survived all your worst days’
could be so helpful
so hopeful
but to me/to my always overthinking brain, i wonder if i haven’t
if i’m somewhere deep in my mind, and i’m actually unsurviving,
or if that just means that the ones i have survived
have been pieces of cake compared to
what’s coming
what’s coming,
and also, i tend to compare
i try not to, but it’s what my brain does
automatically
without me asking
and my worst day felt so bad in my mind
but there are others who have had to deal with external worsts
and they are going through that literally daily
as my country continues to aid the perpetrators
sending money and explosives to a country
that literally doesn’t need it
so why are we still providing
pieces of other people’s
worst days
worst days
worst
days
?
July 9, 2024
my heart has been beating
louder
lately,
like it’s trying to remind me that i have anxiety
[as if i ever forgot]
like if it beats harder
it’ll keep away whatever haunts my waking nightmares
[as if that’s ever been true
for anyone
in history]
like my own hand is squeezing every last ounce
of a will to live
to breathe
to be
out of it —
the last reserves
until november
until perhaps genocides themselves die down
but what happens if / when / if
what i hope will be calming
does not come to pass, and instead fate
doubles my heart rate?
will it then cease?
will it then quit?
will it explode like it’s threatened to a million times over
or will it somehow beat louder
harder
faster
faster
faster
faster
faster
faster
April 3, 2024
casting the blank ballot
was frightening
and liberating
and a little guilt-i-fying
though i’d never do it for the actual presidential election
and i don’t know how much it’ll change anything
i did it
i did it
i did it
for the people
of Palestine
[now let’s go do
more]
kipventures 